


A Most Reluctant Elf

by bwblack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-22
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwblack/pseuds/bwblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes finds himself very reluctantly answering a child's letter to Santa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Most Reluctant Elf

Despite rumors to the contrary, Mycroft Holmes is not the British government. Parliament does what Parliament does and he has only the teensiest amount of interest in their bickering. While they drone on and on and on about potential solutions, maybe, to problems in ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years down the road he sits at his desk and solves said problems between lunch and tea.

Certain situations are far more urgent than political debate would have you believe.

The name plate outside his claims he’s an accountant. He is, of course, as well as a few other things. He hasn’t updated his CV in years. When people in his department, building, government, world… leave their jobs he makes it a point of taking on the more stimulating parts of their jobs. The less stimulating parts of their jobs, he leaves to their replacements.

He has not done the math in a number of years. However, the time he was incapacitated for two weeks in 2002 they had been forced to hire 73 temporary replacements. He suspects the number would be somewhat higher at present.

He cannot make laws.

He cannot levy taxes.

He cannot declare war.

He cannot end one. Well not one that has been officially declared.

He has had some success in preventing wars. It is good that people not know how many times in any given week he does this.

He holds no elected position.

When he dies his obituary will be a short one.

He likes it that way.

However, he has gotten a reputation, around the city, the country, the world as somebody who can get things done. So when the postmaster comes to him complaining about the increase cost of doing business and decreased revenue due to email, there is only so much Mycroft can do.

He can’t raise the price of the stamp.

He can send somebody to tour the under-preforming facilities. Once that is done he will know what needs to be done.

When the day comes, however, for the tour of several London area locations his assistant has taken ill. It’s quite inconvenient. He loathes legwork. He pays people for that. However, it is apparent by 10am that it will take five temporary assistants to replace her. Or, if he were to work through his lunch hour and skip tea, he could replace her himself.

Missing tea and doing legwork? He couldn’t believe he was contemplating it. Still, it beat a postal worker strike.

\--

He spends his afternoon touring the various facilities surprised at how efficiently some of them are run and how less so that others are. Some employees have a clear head for their jobs and others really would be more suited to work at one of those dreadful restaurants people visit without leaving their automobiles.

He is watching the envelopes slide through some automated conveyor thing, one that seems a good ten years older than those at two other locations. Yet, this particular branch puts out more post, they say, than any two in the city. Mycroft wonders if quietly having their system updated will increase their efficiency by a factor of four, as they suggest, or if it will cause the sort of casual complacency he’s seen other places.

He notices a brightly colored envelope amongst the boring white throng. It seems to be decorated with a series of candy canes. “Bit late that post?” He says to the person working the line.

“Letters to Santa,” Mycroft cringes at the word, “we get ‘em year round.”

“Greedy little grouses can’t wait until December to get their wishes in?” Mycroft can see getting requests in early, beating the rush as it were. But this is June. It’s positively vulgar.

“Some, yeah,” the man on the line nods, “others, ones that come in the off months especially, some of those will break your heart.”

The man pulls the brightly colored letter from the line, “Cappy!” he yells and within a second or two the man in charge, the man Mycroft was supposed to be meeting fifteen minutes ago appears at their side.

“You must be the bean counter here to size up the operation.”

Mycroft nods. He prefers a little anonymity.

“My office. This way.” Cappy, as he seems to be called, takes the letter from his employee and leads them to a small, cramped but clean office. Mycroft appreciates the lack of clutter. Although, given the nickname “Cappy”, the man’s perfect posture and his government job, Mycroft assumes the man to be retired military. They do run such a tight ship, the good ones.

It is a brief discussion. Neither man is the type to mince words. Cappy wants a new sorter and a new man.

The first will be done. The second will be evaluated if efficiency picks up once the new machine has been fully installed. “I will make my recommendations to Her Majesty’s government.”

Cappy nods curtly, their conversation done. Before Mycroft can show himself out, Cappy takes the red letter from the edge of his desk and reaches into a drawer for a letter opener.

“Is that legal? Opening other people’s post?”

“Can’t exactly send it on to the North Pole, can we?”

Mycroft frowns, “Isn’t there some organization in Finland or something?”

Cappy nods, “Yeah, good one too. They respond to every letter and the postmark… well, it convinces the more post conscious of children. But I don’t suppose you believe many children pay much attention to a postmark.”

Mycroft shrugs, “There are all sorts of children in the world." He had learned that Father Christmas did not visit his home when he realized how incrediblly unlikely it was that Father Christmas had the same wrapping paper vendors where he lived as Mummy had in Britain. He'd made Mummy take great care with the paper only to have Sherlock note that Father Christmas was unlikely to have the same bite pattern as their father.

“Yes, yes there are. Shall we see what sort this one is, then?”

“Do you open them all?” It seems to Mycroft that tampering with the post of a child is particularly wrong. Also, a man of “Cappy’s” position should have better things to do with his time.

“No, it gets too busy in December. There are charity groups who volunteer to take some. Others get sent to Lapland as you suggested. Others, I’m afraid, do get chucked in the bin. But during the slower part of the year… the wife and I weren’t blessed… and it is rewarding, addicting even, doing things for deserving children.”

Mycroft snorts. How many of these children are deserving? How many, simply, need to be told that the world is not their oyster? His jaw sets in grim determination to make that point just as soon as this Cappy fellow has read the letter.

“Dr. Santa,” Mycroft sighs. So common this Santa now. Hadn’t it been Father Christmas when he was a child? Father Christmas seemed so much more distinguished.

“My dog Lucky Dog has run off. I’ve looked for her everywhere. I made posters. I put one in so you’ll know her when you see her. I don’t know if you see dogs when they are sleeping… but if you do could you tell me where Lucky is? Please?

"That’s all I want. It will be my present. I won’t ask for anything at Christmas. Nothing at all.

"Lucky Dog is my very best friend.

"P.S. I sort of don’t believe in you anymore. I’m 8. But if you bring home Lucky Dog, I’ll change my mind. Please.

"P.P.S. She’s sweet and she doesn’t bite, not ever.

"Suzie Porter- age 8… I said that part already. Sorry.”

Mycroft stifles a grin at the aside. “What does she believe that Father Christmas has no better things to do than chase down stray dogs? Isn’t that the job of some other agency? One that is a good deal more local?”

“Just a girl who misses her dog,” Cappy shrugs handing the letter and poster over to Mycroft who gives it a cursory glance. “Can’t hurt to keep an eye out, can it?”

Mycroft shakes the man’s hand and smiles politely. If this is how all post masters behave, slogging off to find lost puppies, it’s no wonder the post is in the red.

Mycroft is determined to forget all about the lost dog. It isn’t his problem. It isn’t Father Christmas’s Problem. And it certainly isn’t the problem of any postal employee.

But that night finds himself at a restaurant he’s been meaning to try for quite some time. It’s been rather well reviewed despite its suspect location. After a long days legwork he feels he’s earned the extra calories in the curry that the times called “sinfully decadent” and it is that, sinfully decadent. He’s nearly giddy from the flavor of it all.

He’s in a particularly fine mood when he steps out into the street only to realize that he’s just two buildings down from the one housing that child Suzie with the lost dog. He’d noticed the address on the envelope and like any good accountant numbers stay with him. He remembers almost everything’s read, but he has nearly instant recall with numbers. So when he sees this girl’s address he tries to convince himself he is wrong… but he’s not. And as if he needed any more convincing he notices a lost dog poster on the streetlamp nearest him.

Not his problem. The dog’s probably been taken in by animal control. He is not going to run over this ghastly neighborhood looking for some child’s last pup. No, he is not.

Except he does. He doesn’t mean to, not really. But George, his driver, texts him that there is something wrong with the car and it will take ten or fifteen minutes before another can be dispatched. He’s got a number of options. He can step back into the warmth of the restaurant and order something sweet. But he’s already indulged with the meal and he really must be careful. He can resort to public transportation. But he’d really rather not. He can stand on the corner looking the fool, but in this neighborhood he’s likely to get picked up for solicitation. Or he can look for a little girls lost dog.

He’ll look like a fool then too… but at the very least he’ll get something accomplished.

So he makes his way to the child’s address. He doesn’t expect to find anything but it is his only clue.

The closer he gets to her residence the more posters he finds. He’s sure the neighbors haven’t snagged the dog. Not ones from the building, in any case. People do that sort of thing. But this child seems to be the sort to knock on doors.

He tries to imagine that he were a little lost dog. Where would he go? He doesn’t know where a dog would go. If he were lost he’d go to a pay phone, call his assistant, and order a ride home. A dog isn’t like him. No, a dog is like a child. Where would a lost child gone. To the police? Again, not helpful.

“Hungry, I’d be hungry,” Mycroft smirks thinking Sherlock would accuse him of always being hungry. Well, if the shoe fit. A little lost dog is unlikely to walk into the highest rated curry house on the street. Dogs don’t read the Times. He’d have more respect for them if they did.

But dogs do have those noses. They’d be able to sniff out a morsel or too. He sniffs into the air trying to imagine what scents might draw a dog. He shakes his head disgusted with his own line of inquiry, the line of inquiry and the disturbingly foul odor of the alley to his left. He starts there, though.

It’s appalling the things left in alleyways. He takes his diary out and writes down the address. Somebody will come and clean this sty by morning. He’s about to give it all up. The grime is just too much. Any dog worth his salt would sit patiently by the building’s front door and wait until his little girl showed up!

Any dog who didn’t know that a home with a little girl was superior to this sort of filth wasn’t worth the saving.

He hears a whimper towards the back of the alley and moves towards it. He uses the tip of his umbrella to push the debris out of his way. The sounds get louder as he moves towards forward. “Here doggy, doggy. Here doggy, doggy.” The dog falls silent. The thin is far too stupid to be found. But Mycroft has not taken on the job of 113, by his current estimation, others because he leaves a job half done. He continues examining the area, focusing on the area where he most recently heard the noise and making a mental note to add one of those tiny little torches to his key ring.

He hears the whimper again and finds the thing cowering inside the torn remains of an empty box. Seriously, there are sanitation workers in this city he’s quite sure he signs their pay checks. “It’s okay little doggy... Lucky…” he remembers the name from the letter. Not quite so lucky. The dog shifts its head to one side and regards Mycroft with an expression that can only be interpreted as curiosity.

“Lucky… your name is Lucky…” Mycroft repeats. The dog takes a tentative step forward.

They are getting nowhere fast. “Suzie says you don’t bite. She better be right.” The dog growls when Mycroft reaches for it but it’s a tiny little thing and he’s so near being done with it all now. Mycroft is surprised at how hard it is to pick up the dog. The dog is more the size of a rat than a dog. Yet it’s somehow clinging to the ground.

“Come on, Lucky.” Mycroft nearly growls himself. He’ll need to have his suit dry cleaned, his umbrella tip bleached and for what?

The dog relaxes some as Mycroft gets the thing into his arms. Mycroft stands erect now and makes his way for the child’s flat.

He walks round to the girls building and hits the buzzer for 5A. Nothing. No sound at all. He tries 5B and 6A all the same. He makes a mental note to add call building maintenance to his ledger when his arms are free from dog.

He tries the knob. It is locked, technically, but a hard pull releases it anyway. He makes another mental note. He groans when he sees the stairs. “No lift? No lift?” He nearly leaves the dog right there on the street. But it would probably get lost again.

He makes his way up one flight of stairs, another, another, another, and finally the last. He’s glad to be done with it. But it’s easier going than he expected. The diet is doing some good, he notes. It takes no work at all to locate 5A. He doesn’t even need to look for the number. The first door on the left is covered from top to bottom in Lucky Dog posters. “Your person is nothing if not tenacious.”

The dog must know its home. The thing is yipping and wagging and licking… LICKING! Mycroft nearly throws the thing to the ground when its tongue makes contact with his nose! “Sit.” He commands as he sets the dog down and raises his hand to knock on the door. However, before he can make contact he notes that the poster in the very middle of the door has a series of hand written notes. Each seems to detail a place this Suzie girl has gone and what time she will be returning. The most recent claims her mother is working and she is with Mrs. Mullins in 11B. 11? Six more flights? Mycroft looks down at the dog and shakes his head. “That won’t do. It won’t do at all.”

The dog wags its tail happily.

“Stay. Suzie will be back shortly.”

He turns to leave. The dog follows.

“No!” Mycroft says in the kind of commanding voice that has made kings bow to him.

The dog sits.

Mycroft turns again to leave. When he reaches the stairs he finds the dog by his ankles.

“No.” Mycroft repeats.

The dog sits.

“Go home!” Mycroft demands.

The dog looks back down the hall towards his door and back at Mycroft.

“I am not climbing six more flights of stairs.” He explains as if it would mean anything at all to some mangy mut.

The dog sits by Mycroft’s feet. Mycroft storms back to 5A.

The dog follows.

“I do not have time to wait, you stay,”

He turns back towards the stairs but the dog is fast on his heels.

“How do I attach you to this door?” He asks the dog. Of course the thing doesn’t have a leash. It does have a collar, though. With a bit of string he could tie the mutt to the doorknob. No string or rope in the hall. There probably is some in that alleyway, but he isn’t going back there ever.

“Go get a rope, Lucky. Get a rope.”

The dog doesn’t move.

It was worth a try.

Undoubtedly the people in the other flats might be of some use. But he’s already way out of his comfort zone. He does not want to be caught in this state.

He is a resourceful man. He can find a solution on his own. He groans when he thinks of it. He gives another cursory examination of his surroundings. No, nothing. He sighs as he loosens his tie.

“Silk,” he explains to the dog. “For the likes of you,” he threads the smallest end through the hoop on the dog’s collar and makes a knot. He’d not become an avid sailor when he took lessons as a boy. But he had learned all of the knots. He made a loop and tied the other end to the doorknob. “Suzie will be home at eleven. Stay.”

Mycroft tears the middle poster from the door, folds it into quarters, and sticks it in his pocket. He tears a sheet out of his own ledger and writes a quick note.

“Father Christmas,” he underlines the word, “Is quite busy making toys. He does not have time to look for dogs. Please be more careful with yours in the future. If you misplace him again please amend your posters to inform good Samaritans that while the dog may not bite, it does lick. I would have appreciated the warning. Lastly, it is not wise to inform everybody who might pass your door that your flat is empty. It invites unwanted visitors. –Mycroft Holmes.“

He folds the note in half and sticks it to the door with extra tape from one of the multitude of missing posters. He looks around and frowns, “nobody’s going to take you, are they?” He pulls his pen out again and writes on the front of the note, “For Suzie Porter and Suzie Porter only. I will know!”

“Goodnight,” he bids the dog farewell.

When he reaches the street his driver is waiting for him, “I’ve left a package for the residents at 5A. I’ll want to know that it’s been received. I can make my own way home.”

He is just out of the shower at 11:05 when he receives word that the dog is safely in its flat. He nods, pleased and puts the matter as well as himself to bed.

12 weeks later.

Mycroft does not relish this trip. It’s necessary. He knows that it is. And it’s always better to do these diplomatic missions when parliament isn’t in session. They do, so, need looking after. But this trip promises to be more grueling than most. He won’t be home again for 14 days. When he arrives back in the office he will have circumnavigated the globe twice. Seven days will be spent in places in the midst of the coldest winter in history. Four in places in the midst of the hottest summer on record. He does so loathe extremes.

His assistant comes in with the post just as he is cleaning the last scrap of paper from his inbox. “The car will be here in ten.”

He tries to determine based on size and shape the contents of the large package at the bottom of the stack. He goes through the rest of the mail first. A bill he’s already paid. An invitation to a wedding he won’t be attending, another to one he will. Two pieces of mail meant for the office directly above his. He sends one on. The other he responds to himself. And finally the package. No return address. Odd.

When he opens the large parcel, he finds a smaller one and a stack of letters held together with an elastic band. A note is taped to the front of the second parcel. “Mr. Holmes, the new sorter is brilliant. Now, about that other man? Enclosed some letters you might be interested in. I see you’ve been bitten by the bug. Regards, Cappy.”

Mycroft looked at the stack of letters and nearly chucked them in the bin. More Father Christmas letters? What on earth made that man think he’d be interested in answering more of those? How would the man know he’d answered even one?

As soon as he sees the address on the smaller package he understands.

Mycroft Holmes  
Father Christmas’s Helper.  
North Pole

He shakes his head. No good deed goes unpunished. He’d toss the rest of it in the bin along with Cappy’s note. He suspects Ms. Susan Porter, now that she thinks she had a direct line to Father Christmas, had a whole slew of other requests.

Well, at least she’d taken time to read his note. He supposes he should do the same.

Dear Mr. Homles. Mr. Elf? Mr. Holmes-Elf?,

Thank you for finding Lucky Dog!

I will not bother Father Christmas again this year. It is such a relief, though, to know that he’s real.

Lucky Dog is very happy to be home. And we are Lucky to have her back. So many good things have happened since she’s come home. Mother says you have nothing to do with it, but I think maybe…

Thanks for the buzzer, and the alley, and my mum getting switched to the day shift... if it was you.

I saved my allowance and had your necktie pressed. It’s a very long tie for an elf.

Mother doesn’t think you’ll get it. I think you will.

Lucky had puppies. They’re cute.

Thank you,

Suzie Porter

Mycroft reaches into the package and pulls out the long thin box that must contain his tie and a photograph of Lucky Dog and four tiny pups. On the back, in blue biro, each is labeled: Lucky, Vixen, Blitzen, Rudolph, and Mycroft!

Mycroft removes the tie he is wearing and exchanges it for the one in the box. He slides the photograph into his top drawer. Then places the first 14 Father Christmas letters into his bag. He’ll answer one on each day of his trip. Imagine the postmarks.


End file.
